


less than single-handedly

by Cyane



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Avenger Loki (Marvel), Brotherly Love, F/M, Gen, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, M/M, Mild Gore, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Thor (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-09 13:36:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14717078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyane/pseuds/Cyane
Summary: After the war, no one is quite sure what to do with a certain green-eyed, handless god.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Some obvious TW for some PTSD symptoms and referenced/implied torture. 
> 
> (Also AU for this fic; Loki lives. Obviously.)

"Will he live?" 

"That's the fourth time you've asked that in an hour, Mr. Odinson," T'Challa said, not unkindly. "And as I have told you, four times before, my sister will do whatever she can to save your brother's life. I know this is hard."

Thor wasn't able to take comfort in the king's words. Not when his brother was lying on a slab, fighting for his life. Wakanda was the only area on Midgard with the resources to help Loki after Thor had retrieved his body from Thanos' ship.

The body, that was. Most of the body.

Thanos had removed Loki's hands from their wrists, leaving two bony stubs in their place. Along with weeks of torture, malnourishment, and sleep deprivation- when Thor found his brother in one of Thanos' cells, his immediate thought was that he had held Loki's corpse. But with a pulse. 

With Asgard destroyed and the surviving Æsir refugees somewhere in space with the Valkyrie, Wakandan technology was Loki's last hope.

He had already been with their healers for two days. They were at a critical point, where Loki would either accept or reject the medication. As a Jötunn, even the most talented healers had found themselves a bit lost. 

"Will he live?" Thor repeated, completely forgetting that he had voiced the same question mere moments ago. 

T'Challa frowned and turned fully towards him. "I know you care for your brother, Mr. Odinson. There is nothing more for you to do, nothing more we can do but wait and hope. I do not think that staying here is beneficial to you."

"What about what's beneficial to _him_?" Thor snarled, losing all politeness in his anguish. "You don't understand- I've lost him three times now! I have mourned him three times! And despite the repetition, it never gets better!"

The king, fortunately, didn't look offended by the yelling. T'Challa crossed his arms against his chest and leaned in slightly. "We have a chance, right now. We need to let the healers work in peace."

Overwhelmed with emotion, Thor allowed himself to be led by T'Challa, out of the healing rooms and back into the room he had been staying in. It was a miracle that Wakanda had taken them in, despite Loki's reputation. Okoye and T'Challa had put in excellent words for both of them, backing Thor's story of how Loki had attempted to kill the mad Titan in the first place. 

Thor collapsed onto a bench and put his head in his hands and let himself sob dryly. 

"Norns, save him," he begged.

It took another week before there was any improvement. Thor found himself staying awake for days on end or sleeping through them, falling into a depression-like state. T'Challa had stayed by his side for a surprisingly long part of it all, sending in guards to make sure he was taking care of himself.

They couldn't know. They hadn't seen any of it, from Loki's terrified eyes as the Sanctuary II rose above the Sakaarian ship, to his expression as he turned to Thor apologetically before risking it all. They hadn't seen his body slump to the ground, unconscious, or the Maw pulling him away with the wave of a hand. 

They hadn't been there for the rescue.

Thor refused to let Loki die before they had the chance to mend everything. They had been so close, so terribly close to fixing years and years of chaos. It was the closest Thor had been to his brother in a long time, and he wasn't ready to give it all up.

He wasn't ready to let Loki die without knowing that Thor forgave him for it all. 

It was an exhausting week. At one point three Wakandan guards were forced to sedate him in order to keep him away from the medical room Loki was being kept in, still comatose. 

It was always the same. Reiterations of 'there's nothing you can do' and 'just be patient'. Every single phrase meant to calm him only made him feel more and more helpless.

* * *

On the ninth day, T'Challa had finally convinced Thor to join him and Nakia for a meal, and it was the most relaxed Thor had felt in months. 

"This really is quite good," Thor mumbled around bites. "You know, in Asgard, we had something similar."

Nakia beamed. "Really? Tell me about Asgard, will you?"

Thor looked happily surprised. "Of course, Lady Nakia. Asgard was beautiful- there were orchards with golden-apple trees in between buildings, and this sheen of gold everywhere you looked. It was truly magnificent."

His audience nodded politely, quietly allowing him to continue.

"I only recently learned that Asgard's riches came from a more sinister place, though. My father and sister had gotten it through destruction and murder, and covered up the truth with peaceful lies." A bitter note grew in his voice. He heard Nakia hum knowingly. 

"Asgard was destroyed, but I am glad our culture will live on through a small group of Æsir who my good friend managed to rescue right before Thanos arrived."

T'Challa raised a drink to that. "It is devastating, what happened to your people and homeworld. I am glad that a few could be saved."

All three of them took a sip.

"But enough about me." Thor said. "I have been to Midgard before, but this place feels very different. Would you tell me about Wakanda?"

Nakia glanced at T'Challa and Thor was suddenly reminded that Wakanda wasn't known for being open to strangers. Their secrets were their own. Nonetheless, Nakia began, "Well... Wakanda is in the continent of Africa."

"We have remained hidden from the rest of the world to protect our technology until only recently," T'Challa added. "But the time had come for Wakanda to join the rest of the world in its fight. For better or for worse, Wakanda's riches are now widely known."

Thor found it all interesting, but he had never been one to sit still. He had to fight to keep from fidgeting around in his seat, tapping his fingers nervously on his knee as he listened.

"Although much of Wakanda was destroyed during the war, it will be relatively easy for us to recover and rebuild," Nakia continued. "Although I hope we do use some of our resources to help other places." At this, she looked pointedly towards the king, who sighed.

"Of course, Nakia."

They were interrupted as the door violently slammed open, clangs echoing through the hall. Shuri came running in, panting heavily and waving her arms around rapidly. "He's awake! I saved the white boy!"

Thor was off like a bullet, food and conversation forgotten. Nakia and T'Challa found no offense in this, either, as both of them had watched him slowly deteriorate over the days. All four of them ran back to the medical room and inside without hesitation.

Still, 'saved' was a vague term to use. Shuri and the medical team had done wonders, for sure, but the moment Thor's eyes landed on his brother, he still felt something sick begin rising up from his stomach. 

Despite the mottled cluster of bruises distorting Loki's face and neck, the burns that stretched all up and down his arms and torso, the gashes that were littered across every inch that could be seen, or even a particularly nasty stab wound in his knee... Thor's eyes kept falling back to his hands. 

Or lack thereof. 

But he could see Loki's chest faintly falling and rising, and there was a twitch right below his eye. Thor stumbled forward, almost collapsing out of sheer relief.

"Thank you," he managed hoarsely. 

Shuri smiled, although there was some sadness there. "I'm glad I managed to do it. I think everything is in order, I just can't make sure since he isn't human or Æsir. I don't think we've ever seen anything like him on Earth before."

"When will he wake up?"

"I had to take him off his dose of morphine, and we're no longer keeping him comatose, so any second now. I will warn you, Thor... we really do not know the extent of anything. That makes Loki unpredictable, especially his recovery. I'm not sure what the damage to his mind will be once he wakes up."

The words floated around in Thor's head like thick soup. Damage to his mind? No. Loki's mind was the most precious part of him. His silvertongue, his magic, the very essence of himself. Losing his mind was even worse than losing his hands.

Shuri was watching him carefully, and he realized he was gripping onto the chair's arm rest so hard that the metal was warping. "Sorry."

She shrugged. "Look, your brother will live. But you need to know that recovery is more than just saving his life."

Thor opened his mouth to respond, but the beeping of a heart monitor connected to her Kimoyo beads distracted both of them. Shuri turned her hand over, palm up, and the beads formed to show vitals. In the back of his mind, Thor felt another of stab of wonder at Midgardian technology. How mortals managed to develop at near the same rate as Asgard was astonishing. 

"He's waking up, now. T'Challa, call in some guards, please!" 

From the doorway, T'Challa gave a quick nod and took off down the hall. Nakia ran forward towards the vibranium slab Loki was lying on. 

"Is there anything I can help with?" 

Shuri nodded. "We have to hold him down."

"No," Thor said immediately. " _No,_ he's been in chains for who knows how long, and I refuse to put him through the same treatment!"

"We have to hold him down." Shuri repeated firmly. "In order to make sure he does not hurt anyone around him... or himself. When he wakes, he will have no idea where he is. There is a good chance he will react violently, and if he does that, his wounds will open."

Thor wasn't sure if he would be able to do that. But Nakia gave him a nod, and he answered it with his own.

"Fine."

Nakia reached one of Loki's ankles and wrapped her hands around it. Thor went for the hands, and ended up shuddering as he held down Loki by the elbow. Five guards returned with T'Challa just as Loki's left leg gave a shallow jerk. 

One guard at each ankle, one on the other elbow, one keeping his forehead pressed into the mattress, another at his torso, and another at the knees. Thor recognized the one at Loki's forehead as Okoye. 

Loki's elbow began moving under Thor's hands and he forced himself to apply pressure and keep Loki rooted to the vibranium bed. 

Unfortunately, keeping Loki in place only alerted him that he couldn't move, and Loki's eyes snapped open. His pupils were tiny pinpricks surrounded by icy green, eyes blown wide and utterly terrified. "No-" he began, voice broken. 

From disuse or from screaming, Thor wasn't sure he wanted to know. 

"No!" Loki screamed, wrenching his limbs to get out of the hold they had him in. His voice was horrific, ruined and in shreds. It sounded like he had gargled shards of glass. 

"Keep him steady!" Okoye called. 

"Loki?" Shuri asked, leaning in her head so that the God would be able to see her. "Loki, look at me, you're safe!"

"Loki!" Thor ground out, trying to move himself into Loki's field of vision as well. "It's me. It's me, calm down!"

It wasn't working. At the sight of Thor and Shuri, Loki's eyes just grew more wild and his screams more incoherent. Mindless babbling began pouring out of his brother's mouth and Thor recoiled at the sounds.

"Please, please, _please_ -"

Thor's hesitation was enough. Without a hand to latch onto, his grip on Loki's arm slipped right off the end, and Loki's stub immediately flung itself across, jabbing into the warrior holding his other elbow. She fell to the ground, and Loki began thrashing in earnest. 

T'Challa, who had activated the vibranium black panther suit, managed to grab a hold of Loki and pull him back down. Shuri was frantically calling out orders. 

"Please- I'll do anything, I'll serve- I have never done anything other than what you wanted, I have never done anything other than serve you, I'm useful, I swear it, I swear it-"

Thor had only received hints of the damage Thanos had caused in correlation to his brother. He had seen Loki's fear, had seen Thanos' sadistic power, had seen the aftermath of the torture- but he had never, _never_ seen Loki beg in such a way. 

"Hold him down!" Shuri yelled. Thor shook his head in an attempt to clear his racing thoughts, and managed to catch Loki's flailing arm once again, bringing it down to his side. The second Loki had been forced into a more still position, Shuri's hand reached out and jabbed a vibranium needle into the inner side of his elbow. 

Almost immediately, Loki slackened and the screams cut out. 

"Thor," Loki wailed quietly. Thor could feel his heart breaking as he watched Loki go back under.

* * *

It was selfish, but Thor found himself avoiding the medical room after the incident. He didn't want to see Loki like that- he didn't want to see his little brother, crying out and afraid. He didn't want to see anyone other than the genocidal maniac he had grown to recognize his brother as, because it was so much easier to blame him that way. 

And Thor had no idea how to help this. 

"You should be there when he wakes up." Shuri finally told him. "You are the only familiar face right now."

"I doubt he wants me to see him when he's in this state. Loki hates showing his weaknesses- especially to me."

Shuri scowled. "Fuck that. That doesn't matter. You're both idiots."

Thor returned the look. "You saw what happened before."

"You mean on our first try? I told you he'd be unpredictable and he was. It went better than I thought it would, actually. He didn't show many signs of memory loss, and his brain functioning looks normal, which is a good sign. We can't afford to give up on him now."

"I'm not giving up," Thor retorted. "I just don't know what to do." He fell back against he wall, leaning heavily against the painted columns.

"We try again. I've got an idea."

Shuri's idea was to cuff Loki to the bed and then add the mildest sedative possible, so they would be able to communicate without another violent outburst.

Thor still wasn't enthralled by the idea of chaining his brother down, but agreed nonetheless. They were, the all of them, running out of options. Loki wasn't healing when they kept him comatose, so the the best thing for him would be to get up and on his feet once again. 

The next day, Thor watched as several Wakandan guards helped strap an unconscious Loki to another vibranium gurney. 

"Alright, everyone out except for the king, myself, and the Odinson," Shuri said. 

She had a small tray of tools and needles she could use if anything went badly. T'Challa kept to the wall, wearing the black panther teeth around his neck as a precaution.

"Second try is the charm, Shuri muttered under her breath once the doors had shut behind them.

She reached up to the IV bag and added one of the sedatives to the drip to keep Loki calm. These drugs worked much faster than the last attempt, because in seconds Loki's legs had begun twitching wildly. 

"Loki?" Thor questioned.

Loki's head began shaking sluggishly as he was pulled back into consciousness. His eyelids cracked, only the slightest bit.

"Stop," Loki breathed out. 

"Loki, it's me. It's Thor, and you're safe- Thanos was killed, and the war is over." Unsure if reaching out and touching Loki would be helpful or not, Thor left his hand to awkwardly linger in the air between them. 

His words seemed to fly right past Loki, who was looking around dazedly. "Allfather?"

"No, it's _Thor_ ," Thor repeated, a bit desperately. 

"...Thor?" Loki's eyes seemed to stop drifting aimlessly, narrowing in on his face. "You're- not real."

Ignoring his prior hesitation, Thor allowed his hand to reach out and grab Loki by the back of the neck.

"I'm real."

His brother's head began turning back and forth methodically. "No. Stop it- _stop this-_ " Loki blinked rapidly, elbows straining away from the bonds keeping him tied to the bed. 

Shuri, who had been happily surprised by the lack of a struggle, took her hand away from where it had been hovering, prepared to inject the fluid into the drip. Instead she walked up to Thor. 

"I don't get it. The brain scans we took didn't show any sign of damage or chemical imbalance. You don't know if Jötunar can have an imbalance of dopamine, do you?"

"Chemicals don't matter here, Shuri." T'Challa said from the back of the room. "He doesn't know what's real? Prove you are, Odinson."

"And how, exactly, am I supposed to do that?" Thor ground out. 

Loki was watching the argument with some fascination, eyes lingering on T'Challa and Shuri. "Who are you?" He rasped. "What's- happening?"

All three of them turned to look down at him.

"Illusions, illusions," he mumbled before falling silent again. 

"I am Thor, and I can prove it, brother," Thor finally declared, raking his mind for something- some seemingly insignificant bit of information- anything that could prove he was who he said he was. "I know what our last conversation was, right before the Sanctuary II and Thanos arrived on the Sakaarian ship."

It struck Thor that Loki had only begun opening himself up when it had all gone to hell. Damn, they had been so close. 

"You asked me if it was a good idea-"

"Tell me what I told you, right before your coronation," Loki interrupted hoarsely. 

For a moment, Thor wondered how the hell he was supposed to remember something that simple from years and years ago. His mind ran furiously, trying to recall something, a few words, that obviously meant a lot to Loki. 

When it clicked, Thor's throat closed up. 

"You told me to never doubt that you loved me."

Almost comically, given it were any other situation, Loki's face contorted into a look of complete shock. Shuri let out a delighted noise at the success. 

"And you're safe," Thor continued. "We're in Wakanda, on Midgard. The war is over- Thanos is dead." Thor felt like a broken record. _The war is over. The war is over. The war is over._

Loki made a deep, wounded noise. He sounded a bit strangled as Shuri, T'Challa, and Thor watched him grapple for words around his own shock. "I..." 

And then came the horrible moment that would burn itself into Thor's memory. 

Despite happening in mere seconds, time felt stretched out. Thor was watching, too, as Loki's eyes slowly fell from their faces and drew a slow line down to his wrists. Later, Thor would be able to think back and pinpoint the exact moment when Loki realized that his hands were well and truly gone. It was like seeing a bird twist its head around to find that its wings had been severed while it had slept. 

Loki inhaled sharply, before his breath caught, and Thor was sure that he had stopped breathing altogether.

"Oh-" he choked out, eyes unmoving from the stubs that had been strapped down. "You _didn't-_ "

"It was Thanos." Shuri said quickly. "We didn't amputate them." To Loki, this was not a comfort. His head slowly dropped back and he squeezed his eyes closed. 

Thor had thought that he would be able to smile when he saw his brother wake up and regain himself. But in that moment, he truly understood Shuri's words. 

_"Recovery is more than just saving his life."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be a second half to this, do not worry! (And also many more fics featuring a good deal of Loki + angst in this series!)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY FOR THE LONG WAIT. I had to rewrite this several times, and it just keeps growing. :')  
> I've changed the chapter from 2/2 to 2/3, because I'll be splitting it up into another part.. but honestly, it might take up to 5 chapters. Hopefully that's alright with you guys, but it's subject to change. I've been trying to stay on track with ~3k words per chapter.
> 
> I'm also taking a few creative liberties with Loki's magic. (More in the end notes.)
> 
> [!] TW: trauma/some (mild) gore/torture/etc. [!]

When Loki felt Thanos’ hand wrap around his throat, his first instinct had been fear. The fear of Thanos being too close to him, the fear of dying, the fear of _Thor_ dying. His legs had jerked around while his hands flew up to try and pry off the solid, iron grip. 

But as blackness pricked the edges of his sight, and his world gradually dimmed, the lightheadedness began to give him a sense of oncoming freedom; and Loki could only feel complete relief. 

Finally, he would die. 

The first time he had been with Thanos, after the fall from the Bifröst, the Titan had often talked of death. Clearly, Loki had been unworthy of such a luxury. He had begged, first for a position in Thanos’ ranks, then for Thor, and finally, for death. But Thanos laughed through it all, only eventually granting him the first of his requests. He was quite clear that he would only send the finest gifts to lady Death. 

So, although it was devastating, it wasn’t surprising when Loki woke up in the Sanctuary II, immediately attacked by the stench of rotting corpses and metal. It was pitch black, without a single trace of light to give him an inkling of light or shadow. Screams echoed in from the outside, but they were better than the overwhelming silence that fell afterwards, when Loki had to wonder if it had all been inside his own head. Being Thanos’ prisoner was quite simply _pain_ , in all shapes and forms. 

His second stay was a blur. Loki didn’t bother trying to bite down on his lips or tongue to hold the screams in, or to quell the tears, because he _knew_ , after his own experience previously, that his pride wasn’t worth it. Just onslaught after onslaught of pain, while he screamed out until his voice broke. 

_Destiny arrives all the same._

Ebony Maw paid his own visits, as he had before. Unlike the mindless, soldier-esque chitauri, the Maw held a certain grace in his interrogation and torture technique. It was disgustingly passionate, the precise cuts piercing and hitting every nerve they were meant to. Almost madly, Loki continued complimenting his tormentor throughout his visits. It was completely morbid. With every puncture and slice, Loki would make another feverish, snarking remark. (It reminded him of… well.)

“You shouldn’t hit the arteries,” Loki gasped. “You’ll dilute the poison.”

Ebony Maw smiled back at him. “Well, we aren’t trying to _kill you_ , now, are we?” 

Eventually the visits from Ebony Maw stopped, quite abruptly, and the generals of the chitauri returned to continue the punishment. Them, Loki loathed. Despite the features of allspeak, the chitauri remained largely silent throughout their work, doing things simply and emotionlessly, in a cutout fashion. 

They were predictable, and boring. Everything seemed longer when they were in charge. Ebony Maw would tell Loki exactly how long he had been hanging from the chains in the darkened room each time he arrived, just to dig it in that no one was coming to rescue him—but the chitauri generals would burn him just for rasping out the question. Without the check, Loki had no way of knowing how long he had been there. 

Longer than five months, surely. The last check the Maw had given him before leaving was at five weeks, two days, seventeen hours, and forty minutes. Five, two, seventeen, forty. But it felt like years had passed since Ebony Maw had departed without returning—and without any sense of day or night, in the dark room, time seemed to slip away with reality. 

 

“Loki?”

Thor’s voice rumbled in the distance. Loki’s eyes widened, pupils shrinking to pinpricks, and he felt his breath stutter deep within his chest. _Thor. He came back for me._ The chitauri general who was busy slicing away at him paused and turned towards the locked door on one side of the room. 

_Of course he did. Of course he did-_

“Thor!” Loki attempted to scream back, only to wince at his own voice. The mere sound was painful and grating to hear, scratching at every vocal chord he used. It was also much quieter than he had anticipated, and there was no possible way Thor could’ve heard it from down the winding halls of the ship. 

And yet, within seconds, the metal door had been torn open and Thor was standing in the hole of the wall, haloed by light. In one swift movement, Mjölnir-- ( _Mjölnir?_ )-- was cracking the chitauri’s skull and killing the creature.  
Loki sank down, letting himself hang by his wrists as relief crashed over him. “I knew you would come back,” he babbled, slightly hysterically. “I knew you would, brother--“

But just as Thor’s golden figure started towards him, he began fading, becoming transparent and rapidly loosing his color and solidity. The light from the halls darkened along with it, cold shadows of before returning and filling up the room once again. 

“No!” Loki screeched, straining in the chains in a desperate attempt to reach out. “ _No, no!_ Don’t leave!” 

The vision of Thor was gone, and Loki found himself back in the bleak, freezing room, with four solid iron walls encasing him and one very-alive chitauri guard looking back at him, ready to begin another round of torture. 

Hallucinations. Of course. Loki let out a high-pitched wail of frustrated anguish, both in the fact that he had fallen for it, and in the fact that it hadn’t been real. None of it was. Thor most likely thought him dead, and even so, stealing from Thanos was impossible. 

The silent chitauri soldier began hacking away at his arm.

 

There came a point- like there always was- where Loki found himself giving up in earnest. Injections were given daily- or hourly, Loki had no idea-, sending him into vivid hallucinations of Thor and Frigga, either dying, killing him, or coming to save him. Seeing Frigga was painful, but at least Loki knew immediately it wasn’t real. 

The worst were the ones where Thor came back for him. 

“You’re not real,” Loki gasped once, through tears and sobs. His head shook furiously even as Thor’s concerned face leaned down to look at him. 

“Brother, we need to move quickly.”

“You’re not real,” Loki repeated breathlessly. 

When Thor’s hands reached out to grasp the back of his neck in an achingly familiar gesture, Loki would’ve buried his head in his hands if he could’ve. Instead he squeezed his eyes shut tightly, unable to keep looking at the illusion of his brother. _Thanos most likely killed Thor after bringing me here, no doubt._

When he opened his eyes again, the room was dark, Thor was gone, and he could feel no lingering traces of warmth on the back of his neck. 

 

The illusions, more than anything, stripped away his grasp on reality. It was a point Loki had reached before, right before Thanos had deemed him ready to hold the scepter on his own and sent him to Midgard. But Thanos wasn’t looking for a general this time, he was looking for a scapegoat. 

There wasn’t a glimmer of hope, because there was nothing Thanos wanted from him. Loki had no one to betray, no terrible offer to accept. There was no temptation of freedom besides the lies he was fed.

He couldn’t help but wonder, though. In-between rounds of torture and horrific sensory deprivation, Loki was left to hang in the darkness and silence, left completely alone to his own thoughts. It was a close second to the hallucinations, given that his mind had been left in shambles after everything.

_Would I take Thanos’ offer again? Would I do it all again, just to spare myself the pain?_

He certainly had before. Perhaps it had taken a while, but eventually he had given up, once he reached the ‘point’ again, of complete hopelessness, when he finally realized that no one was coming to save him. 

Loki liked to think that he would refuse. 

Moments later, when the chitauri returned and immediately embedded a dagger between his kneecap and his knee, prying them apart, Loki screamed for a way out, and realized that nothing had changed whatsoever. 

“I’ll do anything!” Loki shrieked, dissolving into sobbing breaths and begging. “I know things- I can be useful! Ask me, ask me- _ask- aghhhhhh!_ ” 

He hated himself because he knew that if Thanos offered him freedom in exchange for most anything, he would take the offer without much hesitation. But Loki hated himself _more_ because he knew that he would keep taking it, no matter how much it made him hate itself. 

It was beginning to feel a bit self-perpetuating, the circle of self-loathing. 

_What would Thor think? You’ve disappointed him again. He believed in you, and what’s the last thing you ever did in front of him? Betray him, and then go begging to Thanos’ minions again._

_You’ll never see him again._

_”It’s probably for the best that we never see each other again.”_

Thor was dead, and even once death inevitably took Loki too, they would still be separated forever. There was no doubt in Loki’s mind that Thor was headed for Valhalla, while Loki was obviously turned towards the depths of Hel.  
Loki smiled when the door opened and two chitauri generals entered, menacing iron tools in their claws. Whatever they did to him, he had already braced himself for. _You deserve it._

* * *

Loki woke up to the sound of sirens. He attempted to lift his head, but immediately let out a noise of pain and set it back down on the cold stone flooring as it pounded away, pulsing in agony. He could hear a cluttering of loud noises drifting in from the hallways, but his cell was empty apart from himself. 

And… he was on the floor. That was different. Different enough to draw his attention.

After who knew how long of being strung up by his wrists, he found himself curled up next to the wall, his wrists free of shackles. 

Only another illusion, Loki realized nauseously. He had seen it all before; in a few moments, Thor would break through the door, glowing and looking positively godly, and then it would all vanish right before Loki could take his brother’s hand. 

He hadn’t been on the floor in any other hallucinations, though. It didn’t make a difference, but Loki was glad to get even a few precious seconds to lower his aching arms. 

Instead of allowing himself to get swept up in the fantasy, Loki closed his eyes. 

“Loki!” 

Thor’s voice.

Loki froze, opening his eyes up once more. Nothing had changed; he was still lying on the floor of the cell. In the hallway he could still faintly hear noises implying a fight was going down. Apparently, the hallucination wasn’t over.

(Odd. It usually faded away quickly, or right after his eyelids closed.)

“ _Loki!_ ”

Thor sounded strange. His voice wasn’t the proud boom it usually was, or the comforting, soothing voice Loki remembered from prior illusions. No- this time, Thor’s voice was desperate and raw, and jarringly familiar. 

_Don’t let Thanos’ tricks play on your mind, you fool. The second you fall for it is the second you allow Thanos to torture you and win._ So, ignoring the oddities, Loki sighed and waited for the wall to rip open and Thor to come crashing in.

Only, the dramatic entrance never came. Instead, Loki could hear the faint jingling of a key. A curse. And then the door to the cell swung open, a bit anti-climactically. To Loki’s immense confusion, a beam of hopeful light didn’t burst from the hallway, but simply a dim glow. Enough to see the silhouette of Thor, although his face wasn’t bathed in a halo. 

Why was it so different? Perhaps they were making the hallucinations more realistic, just so Loki would fall for them again? 

“Oh my god… Loki! Shit, what have they done to you?” 

It wasn’t Thor. It wasn’t. 

“Your hands, oh-” There was a retching noise. 

Loki’s face furrowed a bit, puzzled by the exclamation. His eyes sluggishly moved down to look at his hands. His arms ended abruptly, and with a sudden realization Loki noticed that he was lying in a pool of his own sticky blood. His hands were missing entirely. 

Which, at that moment, didn’t bother Loki in the slightest. It was all in his head anyhow, a mere trick of the reality stone to keep him a prisoner of his own mind. None of it was real.

Thor- or the illusion of him, anyway- didn’t seem to feel the same. His breathing began to quicken until he was nearly hyperventilating. Loki watched as Thor fell to his knees beside him and reached out to gently grasp his shoulder. 

And everything was just fine, for a few tiny seconds, until Thor’s hand landed on Loki’s shoulder. And it had weight, and it wasn’t fading away, and Loki _wasn’t waking back up_ \--

Everything seemed to slow down as Loki processed what was happening. 

It was real. 

Horror washed over him like a hot wave, over and over, while shock and panic turned his bones cold and set him trembling wildly, trying to simultaneously get away from Thor and lean into the embrace. “What-“ he rasped, voice crackling. “What-“

“Shh,” Thor whispered, but Loki saw his hands shaking just as much as they pressed down against several bleeding wounds, trying to staunch the flow. “It’s alright, you’re fine, Loki. Calm down- I’m here…”

Loki looked back down at where his hands were supposed to be. 

“I’ve got you- _shit_ \- don’t move, don’t move-“ Thor was still rambling on, almost under his breath. Loki tried to speak again, but could only sputter incoherently as coppery blood flew from his mouth.

Whether from shock or blood loss, Loki fell away into unconsciousness, and it was a mercy.

* * *

Loki awoke to flashes, blinding light, and more hallucinations. He had already prepared himself for it, so seeing Thor was not a surprise, but it did mean that he wasn’t blissfully asleep any longer. The torture would only continue. 

Strangely enough, it didn’t. 

Then he guessed it was another type of mind game; not physical torture at all, but an ongoing mental trick that he had been brought to safety. The real pain would come when it was all revealed, once again, and the world was snatched away from under his feet. 

If he fell for this, even once more, it meant that he had lost. Perhaps Thanos could make him scream, and cry, and beg—but the Titan would _never_ take the form of Thor or Frigga again, and force Loki into caring for something that belonged to that sadist. 

So when Loki felt the press of restraints, he was grateful. It kept him grounded to the idea that somewhere, he was still tied up in the dark cell, with a chitauri guard sitting and waiting for it to be over so they could begin again. It was easy to ignore the face of Thor, looking anguished above him, when he could focus instead on the straps of leather that the chitauri had tied him down with. 

Loki allowed himself to scream. He wanted Thanos and his captors to know that he wasn’t buying any of it. 

 

The next time Loki felt himself being pulled back into consciousness, it felt very different- like he was swimming through a thick molasses, like his head had been stuffed full of cotton. Exhaustion seemed to take up every sliver of his strength, and opening up the slits of his eyes was no easier. 

When he finally managed to, Thor’s concerned, stupid, _fake_ expression was looking back at him. 

“Stop,” Loki tried, sick of the game. They were playing with him. He could see Thor’s lips moving, but as he tried to focus his eyes on his brother’s face, he noticed the patch over one of his eyes, and suddenly Loki was sure that he was looking at Odin. Odin, who had never shown himself in any other hallucination.

“Allfather?” As he blinked, the face became Thor’s once again. “Thor?” The name just slipped out, unintended. “You’re not real,” Loki amended quickly. 

The poisonous heat of hope was slowly spreading in his stomach, and he hated it. His mind knew full well that it would only hurt him more in the end, and yet it continued growing like a parasite. The worst part was, the longer Loki looked up, the more he began to wonder if there was even a possibility of it being real.  
Thor wasn’t a bloody mess yet, and there was no sign of Frigga. The only strange part about it all was the fact that there were two figures standing slightly behind Thor, both of whom Loki had never seen before in his life.

“Who are you?” The room was spinning steadily. “What’s happening?” The worlds sounded pristine in his mind, but he could hear the garble that came out, as if he was speaking underwater. 

He wished they would just turn off a light. After so much darkness, he thought he would enjoy it, but it was blinding, and it made his head pound in the beginnings of a migraine. He could faintly hear Thor describing… something. Loki needed something more concrete; something that only Thor would know, something insignificant that wound still stand out, something before Thanos and the fall from the Bifröst and the destruction of Asgard. 

“…You told me to never doubt that you loved me,” Thor said above him. Loki realized with a start that he had spoken the request aloud. 

If it wasn’t all another lie, then how _had_ he gotten out? How in Hel’s name had any of them managed to so much as scratch the Titan, or steal his prisoners? The hand on his neck was reassuringly sturdy and firm, and there was no new pain being inflicted on him, and for once, Thor looked physically fine. 

He tried furiously to clear his mind and get a grip on where he was. The edges of his vision were tinged, white and fuzzy, but he was slowly adjusting to the light well enough. It couldn’t possibly be Midgard, if they had managed to save his life. Although, if that was true, Loki wasn’t sure exactly what species the other two figures were. They looked mortal enough.

And if it was true, then why had he been restrained?

Loki’s eyes drifted down to look at himself. Padded leather straps were tied around his elbows and ankles, but—

His eyes stopped rigidly at the end of his arms, and he felt all his breath escape him at once. 

_Where are my hands._

The skin stretched over the bones of his wrists like a canvas. It looked disturbingly unnatural, moreso because they were _his_ , and he had been with them his entire life, and they were just- gone. The limbs stopped short. 

He couldn’t remember any chitauri general hacking them off—they’d needed his hands to keep him from slipping through the chains that attached at his wrists. Had it been…?

The situation was unclear. Had they been amputated due to another injury… or had Thor just feared Loki using direct magic once he woke up? The latter made his heart burn. Surely, they couldn’t be that cruel.

“You _didn’t_ ,” was all Loki could force out, petrified. 

“It was Thanos,” one of the figures spoke up. Loki flinched at the name. “We didn’t amputate them.”

Why wasn’t the hallucination ending? Why did _this_ , of all other illusions, have to be the one that stayed true. The one where Loki couldn’t feel most of his body, and his hands were missing, and Thor wasn’t heroically sweeping in to set everything right. 

His hands directed his magic, worked as an outlet to channel his powers- gave him the skills he had acquired. Not only his magic, though; reading, eating- god, he had become an _invalid_ \- and as Loki tried to summon whatever magic he could, he felt it stop short. Like the ends of his wrists were capping it, somehow. 

He couldn’t feel his magic. 

The very thought made him dizzy with panic, and realizing both his fear and his vulnerable position, the only thing he could think of was wanting to be alone. 

“Get out,” he gasped. Loki couldn’t bear Thor seeing him like this.

“What?”

Loki turned his chin up, eyes glazed, and looked directly into Thor’s. “I said… _get… out._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About Loki's magic: I did a lot of research, so I'm aware Loki's magic doesn't necessarily require the use of his hands. But he's just gone through a helluva lot of trauma so it's more psychosomatic than anything. (Not-really spoiler? Magic will be back, eventually, so no worries.)
> 
> Please tell me what you think! Thanks for all the lovely feedback so far, I seriously appreciate it.


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